Our Story

The Fresh Ideas Group, or FIG, is a company built on inspiration and tenacity. Sylvia Tawse, FIG's founder, a wearer of many hats — writer, mother, cook, school and arts activist, wife of organic farmer, marketer, and former restaurant owner — had a vision of a specialist marketing firm that filled the gap that existed between the organic industry and the media with meaningful and compelling communications and educational events.

But what to name this small agency? It had to have a food-centric name. It needed to symbolize a different approach from the PR agency norm. And, it should tie to culture, both agriculture and the art of living culturally one taste at a time. This led to cocktail napkin doodles and musing and the embrace of the classic Mediterranean and Middle Eastern fruit, the fig. Unique, rare, chock-full of lore and symbolism, and sublime when enjoyed at its peak ripeness. It also harkened back to the fig tree orchards in central California where Sylvia grew up. Figs were a treat, and so would this agency be.

By scribbling anagrams of 'FIG' as the agency name, Fresh Ideas Group, was born. Our inaugural client as an agency was fittingly managing the "Keep Organic Organic" public awareness campaign for the Organic Trade Association, which resulted in the highest number of letters received by the USDA in its history, all 183,800 of them lobbying for high-integrity standards for organic at the federal level. Today, 'organic' is defined and regulated as federal law and is one of the fastest growing sectors in the U.S. grocery industry.